If you are not in it – you can’t win it: Advertising and the “Consideration Set”

A common question we get asked is : “How do we get into the “consideration set” of our target market?” The consideration set is the number of brands the customer will consider buying and is also called the evoked brand set. If your customer is looking for your product or service, your brand must come up for consideration.To be considered by a customer, she needs to be first -aware of your brand and know it sufficiently to consider it. Thus to paraphrase a famous saying:

If you are not in it (the consideration set) you cannot win it (the customer’s business)!

To understand the nature of the customer’s choice challenges think of the car market. Recall the car brands you are aware of (your awareness set), the ones you will consider buying (your consideration set), your narrowed choice where you will probably visit the respective dealers (your choice set). Now be surprised by the number of car brands out there at Autosaur.

So what do you spend on advertising to get your word out, if you are not a big brand? Here are three suggestions that are almost free:

1. Social Media helps: Social media helps but don’t assume that your business efforts on social media or content creation is “free,” and paid advertising costs money. For we fail to account for the time that our people spend on the so called “free” social media. Yes, when your organization members help out with the social media and web presence there is the unique benefit of engaging your people with the market and therefore becoming better at customer service and at what they do. However, in larger organizations the politics of social media fear can make hearty participation difficult (Is my post appropriate?Do I have the bandwidth to deal with the fallout of this post?).
2. Some advertising is free- get on “Google My Business”:  For local businesses, it is easy to get onto Google local searches. You may not be on top of the page but at least your business will get listed. Remember that the top spots may be Ads or organic searches. Organic search top results is what is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), that is a long consistent process of quality content building, as pointed out in an earlier post on tagging images for SEO.
3. Free ad impressions in Google AdWords and YouTube Advertising: Being visible when people are searching or engaged with content helps build brand awareness. So don’t discount the free impressions of ads and the ad before the skip on YouTube. Unlike traditional advertising where you pay for impressions, in pay per click advertising like Google AdWords, you pay only when some clicks on your ad and arrives at your website.

Just being considered is huge, because “if you are not in it (the consideration set)” you cannot win it (the customer’s business)”! About StratoServe Digital Marketing Services.